“It’s not gold,” said Esther, tantalizing.

“Tell us, Esther,” said her brother, Johnny Costello. “What’s in the boxes?”

Michael Fairlie, limping round on his twisted leg, affected disdain. “There’s nothing there,” he said scornfully, over his shoulder. “It’s empty boxes. Firewood.”

“All right,” said Esther, feminine and tough at the same time. “It’s empty boxes.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Denis Finane, ready to weep with curiosity. “Tell us what’s in them.”

“Nothing,” said Esther. “You heard him say.”

And so her perverse mood had remained, until today, when at last she was going to show them what she had found.

What she had found did not readily identify itself to any of them. They went down the ladder by candlelight, one by one, and under Esther’s direction the flagstone was prised up again, and the boxes levered out. Inside each of them was an old canvas pack, such as travelling tinkers carried, but so rotten now that it tore when it was touched; and inside the pack two little kegs, like beer barrels, full of black powder – some of it wet, some of it dry still. Alongside each were three or four metal objects, like iron balls, but egg-shaped and fluted. Each had a small metal ring attached, hanging down from its middle.

Michael Fairlie dropped one of these strange things on the floor. It rang on the stone flag, setting up a small tinny echo. It did not bounce, like a ball; it did not break or crack: it did nothing. In the candlelight the children looked at each other, puzzled.

“Well,” said Johnny Costello. “What is it, then? Some old game?”

“’Tis powder,” offered Denis Finane excitedly. “’Tis powder, and these are cannonballs.”

“Balls is right,” said Michael Fairlie, sniggering.

“There’s a bad word, and well you know it!” said Esther sternly. “Your ma’ll soap your mouth out, if I tell her. Behave yourself, then.”

Johnny Costello was fiddling with the object which Michael Fairlie had dropped. “The ring’s loose,” he said presently. “You can pull it out.”

He gave a jerk, and the ring came away, and with it a small pin. They waited, none the wiser, for some explanation, but nothing happened.

“Buried treasure!” said Michael disgustedly. “’Tis nothing but a lot of old kitchen stuff.”

Esther opened another of the kegs – the wooden staves were loose and rotted – and dipped her finger in the powder, and tasted it with the tip of her tongue. It looked like black sugar, but it was salty and bitter, different from anything she had ever tasted before. She stood in silence, disappointed that her ‘treasure’ should have turned out like this – nothing special, just dull and flat, with no sense in it.

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw her brother Johnny pick up another metal ‘egg’, and jerk out the pin, and then hold it momentarily to his ear, listening. She pushed the keg of powder she had opened back into the box again, and Johnny, following her, tossed the metal object on top of it.